Food scientist and CEO of sustainable cosmetics brand Lük Beautifood, Cindy Lüken, has introduced the Modern Beauty Standard, an initiative that will serve as a roadmap for businesses in the beauty industry as part of the ongoing drive towards sustainability and accountability.
The Modern Beauty Standard consists of 24 steps that will guide all areas of business operation by ensuring full ingredient transparency and product safety, improved customer experience and cultural representation, reduced plastic waste and carbon emissions, greener energy consumption and responsible manufacturing, more impactful community-led campaigns, and greater award and industry certifications.
Each step is also built on the consideration of people, planet and product with their trademarked triple C formula of clean, conscious and credible.
“Consumers are looking for leadership from brands. They’re calling on beauty companies to lift the lid on their ingredients, end the use of confusing jargon and greenwashing, prioritise their customers’ health, and do more to protect the environment. Across the world we’re seeing them actively switch to brands that align with their values,” Lüken, an Inside Small Business Top 50 Small Business Leader, said.
“Sustainability is so much more than a green label and a promise to reduce plastic. It’s complex and impacts all areas of the business, including your supply chain,” Lüken added. “The Modern Beauty Standard unites our foundational pillars of Clean, Conscious and Credible. It translates the science and our ethos into practice, sets guidelines for how we work with our partners and manufacturers, and communicates what it means for our customers.”
The Modern Beauty Standard is the first of its kind in the Australian market to align with the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with Lük Beautifood looking to lead the way in advocating what it considers ‘true business accountability.’
“A recent UK survey of 2000 women by beauty and wellness retailer Holland & Barrett showed 97 per cent want beauty brands to be more transparent about the ingredients in their products. And according to research by Futerra, Gen Z has uncompromising expectations on product transparency for social, health, environmental, and safety issues. This isn’t just looking to the future – the future is here already,” said Lüken.
“We’re bringing transparency across all core business activity from formulation to packaging, what we do and how we do it. This is about making it easier for our Lük women to understand what she’s putting on her skin, take control of her health and her impact, and have the confidence that we’ve got it covered,” she added.
“The modern woman is looking for safe, clean formulations in products that work, she’s looking for a brand she can trust, for better packaging, and she’s looking to support small local businesses and for opportunities to support other women,” Lüken said. “This next evolution of our company will see us elevate our positive impact across workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment.”
